The first extended study in English of the revolutionary memoirs from Shlissel’burg Fortress.

In 1884, sixty-eight prisoners convicted of terrorism and revolutionary activity were transferred to a new maximum-security prison at Shlissel´burg Fortress near St. Petersburg. Inhuman conditions in the prison caused severe mental and physical deterioration among the prisoners, and over half died. However, the survivors fought back to reform the prison and improve the inmates’ living conditions. Their memoirs enshrined their experience in revolutionary mythology and served as an indictment of the Tsarist autocracy’s loss of moral authority. This book features three of these memoirs—translated into English for the first time—as well as an introductory essay that analyzes the memoirs’ construction of a collective narrative of resilience, resistance, and renewal. The first extended study of these memoirs in English, this book uncovers an important episode in the history of political imprisonment. It will be of interest to scholars and students of the Russian revolution, carceral history, penal practice and behaviors, and prison and life writing.
 

Sarah J. Young is associate professor of Russian at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London. Her books include Dostoevsky’s "The Idiot" and the Ethical Foundations of Narrative and Dostoevsky on the Threshold of Other Worlds.

List of figures and tables Preface Glossary Note on transliteration 1. Introduction: surviving Shlissel´burg, writing resistance 2. Liudmila Volkenshtein, Thirteen years in Shlissel´burg Fortress 3. Mikhail Ashenbrenner, Two Decades in Shlissel´burg prison 4. Vasilii Pankratov, Life in Shlissel´burg Fortress Appendix: Shlissel´burg’s inmates, 1884-1906 Bibliography Index